Activity Review | Shaw Conversations IX—Lunch Talk with Prof. Tong Shilu

In the beginning, the participating students sat down rather sparely as usual. To break the ice and soothe the awkward atmosphere, Prof. Tong kindly asked students about their recent study and campus life.

Some senior students mentioned their confusion about the direction of future career development. A junior student asked why there were so many alumni did not engage in the fields that were unrelated to their majors. Prof. Tong replied that the undergraduate education was more like a cultivation of one’s comprehensive ability. It is the general education rather than the in-depth researching education, which lays emphasis on discovering one’s true interest.

Prof. Tong also mentioned that many foreigners would seek further education and enter graduate school after several years of working, because they had found their real interest.

Regarding the question that whether to complete a doctoral program, Prof. Tong used his own experience to answer. He said that he was rather busy when he was a doctoral student. He had to do his own research and gave the tutorial to the undergraduate students. Moreover, the process of completing a doctoral program was extremely painful, just like “One has to get up earlier than roosters and sleep later than dogs.” Therefore, Prof. Tong suggested that if someone intend to attend a PhD program, he/she should firstly have passion for scientific research; after finding out where the real interest lies, then it is the right time to go for it.

The one-hour Shaw conversation quickly came to an end. The attendees all had harvested their own thoughts after a joyful talk with Prof. Tong.

Students’ feedbacks:

As an HSS student, I was concerned that I could hardly communicate with a SME professor. However, it turned out that my worry was superfluous. When Prof. Tong sat amid us, he asked us about our academies and then accordingly conducted different discussions. Also, he gave us some academic advices. By the way, Prof. Tong was really humorous! The atmosphere was not awkward at all! This sort of lunch not only proffered us an opportunity to communicate with professors from different schools, but also helped me meet seniors, listening to their confusion as well as their experience.

—Huang Shiyi, class 2018, HSS

I was so lucky to join this lunch talk again. Despite the dropping temperature, Prof. Tong’s kindness was like a spring breeze. Confronting with final, the students were inevitably flustered, and the comfort came from Prof. Tong surely calmed us down, allowing us to temporarily throw away all the troubles and enjoy a leisure lunch time. He patiently shared his life and working experiences with us, and gave us a lot of academic advices. Students from different schools could benefit a lot from this talk. During this period, I also met more interesting friends and once again felt the warmth of Shaw family.

—Gao Luyao, class 2018, SSE